


the unfair trade

by polkadot



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Pining, happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, Andy’s been kind of busy playing tennis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the unfair trade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mardia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardia/gifts).



The thing is, Andy’s been kind of busy playing tennis.

Every once in a while an interviewer asks him what’s the last book he read, and he tries not to stare flatly at them and judge them for their lack of preparation. (He always fails, because ‘stare flatly’ is kind of his default expression, but yeah, he tries.) If reporters bothered to do their research, they’d realise that a. he’s answered this question before, and b. that he obviously doesn’t have time to do crap like read books. It’s still ‘a bit of _Harry Potter_ when I was a kid’, and he’s still travelling the world playing tennis for a living, not studying to be a professor or anything that would require books.

Novak manages to find time to read books, somehow, but then Novak’s always been special. He speaks like, all the languages, while Andy is at best rather skilled at Spanish profanity. He cooks. He wins lots of Grand Slams, and he’s full of charm, and Andy’s pretty sure he had a threesome with Jelena and Ana once. Pretty sure. Although that might just be Novak’s roguish pranksterness coming through.

But anyway. The _point_ is, Andy’s been kind of busy playing tennis, and trying to manage his increasingly balky back, and dealing with all the press after his first Grand Slam. He hasn’t had time to notice – until now – the new dynamic in the locker room.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Juan. He does, mostly, although he’ll never quite forgive Juan for talking crap about his mum. His mum’s off-limits. But they’ve patched it up since, and Juan’s a nice guy. Andy likes him.

It’s just that Novak is Andy’s. They grew up together. They were teenagers together. Novak almost came over and played for Britain. For a while they were as close as brothers, in that instant teenage friendship that seems forever. Just because they aren’t living in each other’s pockets anymore, doesn’t mean that Andy is giving up his claim. What does Juan have that Andy doesn’t?

He watches them for a few tournaments. They think they’re being discreet, but they’re not. At first he’s not sure if it’s just friendship – sneaking away to grab lunch together, an illicit Playstation meetup (Andy’s done the same himself with Rafa before) – but Juan’s fingers linger too long on Novak’s shoulder one day, and then he sees Novak’s face. It’s written there for the world to see, and Andy goes to the gym to run away the picture.

He’s drawn in the opposite side of the draw from them in Wimbledon. He should focus on Roger and Rafa, looming forbiddingly in his half, but he keeps stealing glances at Novak and Juan’s matches in the locker room, or watching them on his laptop when his mum and Kim aren’t around to notice. They’re both playing well. One morning during practice he imagines them waking up together, Novak stretching like a cat and nuzzling Juan’s collarbone, and he starts shanking balls so badly Ivan nearly cries.

(Except not really, Ivan crying would be, like, the end of the world. Apocalypse. Doomsday.)

When Roger and Rafa abruptly go out early, Andy puts his head down and regains a bit of his clarity. He can’t waste a chance like this. He has to get through to the final, he has to.

Of course then Juan unzips Novak’s shirt in the middle of their match – in the _middle of their match_ , fucking hell – and Andy’s mental clarity goes all to shit. 

It doesn’t help Andy’s sense of, like, cosmic justice, that he’s fairly sure looking back that Novak had a major crush on him when they were teenagers. The problem is that Andy’s always been oblivious to these sorts of things, including his own bisexual leanings for like, forever, so it probably would have taken Novak climbing on his lap and kissing him for it to penetrate his dense teenage brain. And that just hadn’t happened.

He sits watching their match, almost glued to the screen. He half expects Juan to lean down to kiss Novak at the net, after Novak wins in five hard-fought sets. But Juan doesn’t – saving it for in private, he supposes – and Andy’s left staring at the TV, flashing back to what might have been.

What if Novak _had_ climbed in his lap years ago? What if they’d grown up together in every sense of the word? What if it wasn’t his old friend but his boyfriend who he’s going to face in the final?

He forces himself out of those thoughts before he can go too far into thinking about what it would be like to touch Novak the way Juan did, to smile at him with that hidden twinkle of knowing, to kiss him in the showers when they thought nobody was around to see. 

It’s the way they laugh together that bites most.

Soon enough Andy will be the one facing Novak across the net on Centre Court. The crowd will cheer and the reporters froth at the mouth, and Harman will want to ghostwrite his autobiography, and everyone will hold their breaths hoping for the first British male singles winner in living memory. If he wins, he’ll be assured of his place in sporting history forever. 

And yet he thinks the court will narrow, just for a moment, to a familiar Serbian face, to a familiar pair of laughing eyes and a funny chin, to the man he’s just now realising he kind of has a thing for. Has had, for a good few years.

He’s just been too busy to notice.

After the final, he’ll be the champion for the first time, or the defeated challenger once again. He’ll lift the trophy, or swallow his disappointment and try to be gracious. He’ll smile for the cameras, as best as he’s able (it’s not his fault his face is kind of stuck in wooden mode, it was just made that way).

And win or lose, Juan will be waiting for Novak, those warm open arms just waiting to congratulate or console. Win or lose, Novak will go to him, in a way he’ll never go to Andy; Andy gets the manly hugs, the bro-teasing, the play-wrestling sometimes. He doesn’t get more. He never knew he wanted more.

Life will go on. 

Andy will push forwards. He’ll keep struggling with his back, he’ll keep doggedly fighting to be relevant in every tournament. He’ll keep trying not to see whispers in ears, secret caresses, tender moments in hidden corners. He’ll keep doing what he does best, and try to forget what might have been.

He’ll be kind of busy playing tennis.

(And in a hotel room nearby, Juan will open his arms to Novak, pulling him close, and Novak will tip his face up to be kissed, hooking one impossibly bendy leg around Juan’s waist, and Juan will push him against a wall, and Novak will go willingly, laughingly, freely.)

Andy wins Wimbledon. Novak and Juan win each other.

Andy’s not entirely sure it’s a fair trade.


End file.
